


The Enlightenment

by carloabay



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1, Explicit Language, Gen, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:16:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21973447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carloabay/pseuds/carloabay
Summary: Harper quit the SAS when she found out she had powers. She moved to New England, cut off her family ties, changed her name. But it was never quite enough. Someone would always be looking for her. And she would have to keep running.
Relationships: Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in season 1, when it's all still fun and no one's dead and everyone still has their hands and their sanity :)
> 
> Edit: i am not american, so if you are and you find any mention of something that is not accurate, please tell me so i can correct it thank you :))

It was in code, the letter that slipped through the door of her trailer on a cold Thursday morning. She'd been inside all day, playing the cello, but the music abruptly stopped at exactly nine twenty two, the second the letter hit the doormat. She rose, putting away her cello before advancing to the door. It looked innocent enough, the letter. It was addressed to her, Harper Faul, with a postage stamp and her address. The only hitch was, she never got letters. She picked it up like it was poisonous and dropped it on the table a few feet away. The trailer wasn't big. She sat back down, lifted her cello, and began to play again. 

Twenty minutes later, she was sat at the table, running through the sentences, and decoding it, word by word, scribbling it down on the envelope. With each passing moment, her panic rose. They'd found her. They wanted her. They'd come for her. Signed, in a ridiculously curly fashion, by the Clairvoyant. She swallowed, then looked up at the clock over the kitchen sink. Nine forty seven. 

She rose from her chair so quickly she knocked it over, then snatched up her translation of the letter, pulled a lighter from her pocket and set on fire, before throwing it out of the open window into the concrete outside. She shoved the lighter back into her pocket, righted her chair and rushed to put her cello away. 

Outside, the wind picked up and then died again. A few people sitting on the steps of their trailers, smoking and chatting, shivered in the sudden chill. a washing line fluttered as she clicked the cello case close and pulled a backpack off a plastic coat stand. She grabbed her laptop from where it was charging, unplugged it and shoved it in the bag, then added a knife, three books, a pair of gloves, her phone and a cap, from various places around the trailer. She hurriedly made her bed, then shut all the windows and turned off the lights. She shoved her feet into battered leather converse, pulled a pale hoodie over her head and threw on a black jacket. She slung the bag over one shoulder, snatched a pair of sunglasses from the table and shoved the letter into a false drawer beside the sink. She locked the door behind her and stuffed the key into her bra as she emerged into the cramped trailer park she lived in. Next door, a black man, no more than twenty, poked his head out. 

"You okay?" She shrugged, pulling her hood up.

"Gotta run."

"What'd you do this time?" 

"Don't know yet," she replied. "But they'll come knocking for you." He nodded.

"Don't worry, I gotcha. Stay safe."

"I try, but it never seems to work out." They shared a smile before she took off running, wisps of hair flowing out of the sides of her hood. The man looked up at the gathering grey clouds, then turned inside and closed the door on them.

†††††††††††††††

Coulson pressed the bell for the third time, and they heard it give a little tinny ring. Ward peered through the window, but the trailer was dark.

"I don't think anybody's home," Fitz offered, weighing his equipment suitcase in his hand. Ward put a hand on his holster and looked around the trailer park. A few people were eyeing them curiously, watchfully.

"I'll go check with her neighbour," Skye said, looking over to the next trailer, where the curtains were drawn back and a guy was washing up at the sink.

"Good idea. May, can you get the door unlocked?" Coulson asked. May nodded and knelt, pulling two pins from her belt as Skye walked off. 

She approached the door and knocked twice, hearing the water shut off and footsteps approach. The door opened and a twenty-something guy opened the door, drying his hands on a ragged dishtowel. He was at least six feet tall, towering over Skye, and the way he looked at her seemed a lot like he didn't want her to get any closer. She gave her friendliest smile and he observed her with cold brown eyes.

"Hey, I'm Skye. Your neighbour, Harper? You haven't seen her around lately, have you?"

"What's it to you?" He grunted. Skye put her hands in her jacket pockets and shrugged. God, it was cold here.

"Just need to ask her a few questions, that's all."

"You the cops?" Skye shook her head and tried to speak, but he interrupted her before she could. "Then leave. You're not welcome and you got no right to be sneakin' around, asking questions." Skye blinked. This was going south quite quickly. "I said leave," the man growled.

"Look, I don't want any trouble. I just need to know where she is."

"She's not here. She left a few days ago." He slammed the door shut in her face and she heard heavy footsteps walking away.

"Dammit," she breathed, walking out onto the main path. She looked left, to where May was picking the lock, then right, and saw a black jacket vanish around the corner of one of the trailers, a few hundred metres down. "Coulson? You see that?" She asked. The wind was picking up, and the grey sky seemed to shudder with a threat of rain. She looked back, but Coulson hadn't heard her, so she started off at a slow jog down the path. 

People were starting to look at the sky and turn away inside, some pausing to watch as she ran past. After a few moments, she saw the black jacket again, the wearer whipping around the corner of a trailer. 

"Hey! Wait a second!" Nothing. They were gone. She picked up speed. "Hey, wait! I'm not gonna hurt you, we just wanna talk!" There was a thud of running feet from behind one of the trailers and Skye ducked between two of them to see the black jacketed girl running down another main path. Skye took off after her, and rain started to drip. 

†††††††††††††††

The lock clicked and May pushed the door open, then went in, gun up, sweeping the room as she and Ward went in in hook formation.

"Empty," May called. Simmons looked around, at the neighbours house, and as Coulson followed her gaze, he felt a funny jolt.

"Um...sir?" Simmons asked. "Where's Skye?" Coulson looked around. He could see Faul's neighbour washing his dishes through the window, a short woman smoking on her front step, someone taking in their washing. No Skye.

"Fitzsimmons, stay here and look around. Ward, May, with me." Fitz nodded and May and Ward came out of the trailer.

"What's wrong?" May asked. "Where's Skye?"

"Take an inventory of the trailer. Anything unusual, bag it up and if anyone attacks you, ICE them," Coulson said, then took off down the main path. "Ward, May, let's go!" He heard them running behind him and looked into every gap, hoping to see a flash of a person, but all he saw were people ogling him from the safety of their trailers, stopping to stare as they climbed inside, drawing the curtains furtively as the three of them pounded past. Above him, the rain started to drip.

†††††††††††††††

Fitz watched the three agents run off, his heart stumbling a little, the beat turning panicky. 

"Do you think she's alright?" He asked Simmons, who was busy unpacking her things. Simmons looked up momentarily.

"I'm sure she's fine, Fitz. Come on, we've got work to do, and this place isn't exactly savoury, is it?" She put a hand on his arm and led him towards the door. "They'll find her. We've got our own work to do."

"Aren't you worried?" He asked, stepping inside the trailer and laying his case down on the floor. Simmons didn't even seem anxious. But then, she was always so professional. That was why he admired her.

"Yes, I'm worried. I'm always worried," she replied irritably, pulling on a pair of blue gloves with a snap of plastic. "But Skye is trained as a field agent, and so are Agents Coulson, Ward and May, and they are prepared for this sort of thing. Now stop being a mother hen and help me, for goodness sake!" Fitz frowned. Mother hen, indeed. He moved to the kitchen area of the single room trailer and pulled on his own pair of gloves as Simmons started to check around the bed. False drawers? Or plumbing? False drawers, he decided, was a better, less messy place to start. And these ex-military people always had a false drawer or a safe hidden somewhere ridiculous, didn't they? That reminded him--

"Simmons, remember that TV show, the one about the sci-fi crime organisation, where you got annoyed because-"

"They never had enough samples from a crime scene, the forensic scientists were treated like medical examiners and no one wore gloves," Simmons cut in with a laugh. Fitz chuckled and pulled open a drawer full of mismatched cutlery. 

"I could barely even hear the dialogue, you wouldn't stop whining about it."

"Well, it's alright for you engineers, isn't it? It's not like you can mess up describing the mechanisms of the gun found at the scene, but they always manage to mess up--"

"Hey, now, they kept making up things that didn't exist and could never work in real life! You remember the ninja star that could extend into a two metre diameter shield and was used to kill people with a blast of bloody radiation." Simmons laughed again and Fitz smiled with her and went back to rifling through the next drawer, the memory of watching the show drawing a laugh from him, too.

"Yes, that was quite ridiculous." He felt around in the bottom of the drawer, and just as he felt like moving onto the next, something clicked and he pulled away a false bottom to reveal a crumpled piece of paper lying amongst a few folded photographs.

"Simmons." He picked up the letter and smoothed it out. Code. "Simmons, I've got something." His heart quickened like it always did when he found a delicious piece of evidence, and he grinned at it. "Oh, what a code. What a beauty. This is...this is incredible." Simmons appeared at his shoulder and breathed out, but she wasn't looking at the code. She picked up the photos and sifted through them, and Fitz looked down.

"Fitz, look at this. This is her family." It was. They all had the same sort of smile, similar noses. "She must have left them behind when she went to America." Simmons sighed. "Imagine that. Must've been awful," she said softly. Fitz looked at her, at her concerned frown and soft expression and his heart forgot to beat for a second. He shook it away, a little confused, huffing the smell of her perfume from his nostrils. Those were strange thoughts. He'd never...never before. And never again, he reminded himself. Dangerous thoughts. 

†††††††††††††††††††††

"Hey! Stop!" The rain was pattering now, smacking into the dusty ground with force. Skye could see the girl getting further and further away. She was too fast. There was a high chain link fence ahead, and Skye knew if the girl got over it, she'd lose her in the woods beyond. Skye skidded to a stop, pulled out her ICER and raised it to eye level. "Stop or I shoot!" She yelled, and ahead, the girl slowed to a jog, then a stop and slowly turned around, hands raised. Skye gripped the ICER, everything she'd learnt about how to fire it slipping from her mind suddenly. "P-put your hands on your head!" The girl complied and Skye drew nearer, fumbling to turn on her wrist transponder with one hand. "On your knees! Coulson, I got her," she said into the transponder. Coulson's heavy panting came in through her ear, accompanied by running footsteps.

"Keep her there. We're on our way," he replied. Skye advanced on the kneeling girl, whose head was lowered, her features not visible apart from her short, fiery blonde hair.

"Stay there," Skye panted, her heart palpitating wildly. The girl made as if to lower her hands and Skye gripped the ICER tight. "Nuh-uh! Hands where I can see 'em!" 

Neither of them moved for the next few seconds and soon, Skye could hear Coulson shouting her name, distantly. The rain was coming down hard now, pattering the dusty track to mud and plastering Skye's hair to her face. She wiped her wet forehead with the back of one hand, but before she could put it back on the ICER, Faul grabbed her wrist, rose to one knee, yanked Skye towards her and drove a shoulder into her gut, then flipped her over her shoulder and slammed her into the mud. Skye's head hit the ground and she fought to draw in breath through a haze of rain and stars, doubly winded. 

She slowly came to the realisation that her hands were empty and struggled to find her thoughts, raising an arm as a shield against the driving rain. Faul stood above her, emptying the ICER. Skye finally found her breath and lunged for Faul's knee, sending her crashing into the mud. Faul kicked out, twisting Skye's wrist and landing a foot on Skye's nose, then rolled over and slammed a chop into Skye's throat. Pain blinded her and she fell onto her side with a strangled cry, hands at her face, again struggling to breathe. 

Something swung sharply into her side and she curled around it, the hit slamming into her so hard she almost lifted off the ground. Skye lay there, tensed for another battering, trying to whimper in pain. Her face throbbed in agony and she tasted blood and vomit, then salt as tears streamed from her eyes, mixing with the forceful rain. 

Then Faul's footsteps started, going past her. They got further away, fainter. Skye tried to push herself up, slipping in the mud, blood and water dripping to the ground and her stomach muscles cramping. She wanted to be sick. She wanted to curl up and cry. But Faul was getting away. She rolled onto her stomach and braced her arms on the ground, her twisted wrist complaining, then rose as far as she could, gritting her teeth against the pain and squinting into the haze. The silhouette of Faul vanished in the sheets of rain with all the rest of her dim surroundings and Skye slumped down again, the ground sliding underneath her, breath rasping through her teeth and sobs escaping her bruised throat as her nose ached and burned and bled. 

She turned her head on the side, dropping it to the mud as the shouts of her team got louder. The edges of her vision smudged black as she stared, unseeing, at the empty ICER and the blue bullets scattered on the ground. The rain drove down and she started to shiver.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome Wagon failed, Harper runs, and the team try again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was pre-written btw. So that's why there's so many chapters so fast.

The rain was so heavy now, they could hardly see the sides of the trailers around them. The park was massive, they'd never find Skye just by looking. Coulson pressed his earpiece down.

"Skye, the rain's too heavy. Tell me where you are." He waited, but the comms stayed silent on the other end. The three of them exchanged a look. "Skye?" He tried again. Nothing. "Okay, split up. This place is massive, we'll go these three paths, she can't have gotten far." 

"I'll take left," May said, turning and running left.

"I got right," Ward muttered, going the other way. Coulson wiped water off his face and took off down the center path, scanning through the sheets of water.

"Skye?" Nothing. The ground was turning to mud underneath his feet and he was soaked through already. He could barely even see the trailers either side of him. He had no idea how they'd even find Skye, let alone Harper. "Skye!" He squinted through the haze, water spilling over his face. Dimly, he heard May and Ward calling for her too, but no answers. 

As he pounded down the path, feet sliding slightly and stomach constricting with worry, the sight ahead of him blurred a little and separated a small, dark lump from the grey of the mud. It wasn't moving. Panic seized Coulson and he sped up, holstering his ICER and drawing nearer, afraid of what he would find. The lump came into focus, a person, slumped on the ground, dark hair, Skye. Coulson dropped to his knees beside her and pulled her into the recovery position, feeling for a pulse on her wrist. It fluttered under his fingers and his shoulders sank in relief. Then he saw the blood mixing with the water and mud, and then he saw her face with a start of terror. Her nose was thickly running with blood, the skin around it already bruising. There was a blunt force cut on her jaw, bruises on her throat and saliva and bile dribbling out of her mouth, open now that she was on her side. "I've found her. Quickly, we've gotta get her back to the Bus," he said urgently into his comms, before hooking an arm beneath her back and heaving her into a standing position. Her legs sagged against him. She was a dead weight, and she'd choke on blood and vomit if he wasn't quick. He didn't have to drag her far, however, before May came sprinting from his right and drew to a sudden stop at the sight of the two of them: Coulson covered in mud and water, heaving a collapsed, bloodied Skye over his shoulder.

"What happened?" May asked, running to help support Skye.

"I don't know, I found her like this. We gotta hurry, though." Together they pulled her along, her feet dragging along the ground and the rain dampening her already soaked hair.

"Where the hell is Ward?" May muttered grimly. As if on cue, Ward sprinted round the corner, arm over his face to shield it from the rain, then skidded to a stop, shock coming over his face when he saw Skye.

"What-"

"Faul got away," Coulson called through the rain. Ward's eyebrows descended grimly.

"Want me to go after her?"

"Let's get back to Fitzsimmons. Skye needs urgent attention, we need analysis of the trailer, and she can't have gone far, especially in the rain."

†††††††††††††††

Harper slipped her fingers into the chain link fence and hauled herself up, stuffing her feet into the holes. She slipped a few times on the rain-slick metal, but she reached the top, swung over and dropped down. She didn't know who the girl was, but if it was anything to do with that goddamn letter, she needed to get out, fast. The nearest town, Hale Hill, was a mile from here, and she'd have to run if she wanted to get there before her pursuers. She was soaked through already, and shivering. Damn the rain. Harper started to run.

††††††††††††††††††††††

Skye sat on the table, an ice pack on her nose, Jemma fussing around her ribs, Ward glaring daggers at the floor. He was pacing in front of her, obviously agitated. Coulson and May were upstairs, trying to track Faul down again, and Fitz was tapping his pen on his chin, brow furrowed.

"Ward." He ignored her, reaching the wall of the lab, wheeling around and pacing back again. "Ward, I'm sorry. It was minor."

"It doesn't look that minor," he grunted, his arms flexing as he crossed them.

"It's my fault. I'm sorry. Don't get worked up about it." Ward tensed all over, looking instantly irritated. Skye realised she'd said the wrong thing, but she was too annoyed to backtrack. She'd just got beaten up, and all he could do was growl at her. Couldn't even bear to ask if she was alright.

"I didn't put the blame on anyone else. Never said that."

"But you're thinking it!"

"I shouldn't have put you in the field this early, Skye."

"It was my choice."

"I'm your S.O! I make your choices for you! And obviously I was wrong, 'cause you just went and got yourself beaten up!" He wheeled again. Jemma coughed awkwardly.

"Um, raise your arms above your head, would you?" Skye complied, and started to speak again, not ready to back down.

"Look, I let her get the upper hand. That was it. It wasn't a major mistake!"

"Skye, that is the most major mistake you can make! You're not going back out."

"That's not fair! I proved I can do this!" Ward turned to face her sharply.

"No, you proved you can do it *theoretically*, against me, in training."

"That's not-" 

"I'm speaking now. Don't interrupt me." His voice was thick with danger. Skye shut up. "Theoretically, you can do a pull-up, but I don't know now that you're not gonna panic when you're hanging off the edge of a building, and drop!"

"What is it with you and hanging off buildings? It's not like I'm dead!"

"You could've been! She's ex-SAS, and if she'd wanted to kill you with her bare hands, she could have!" There was silence. Fitz tapped his pen again. Ward grabbed it and threw it against the wall, then stormed out. They all watched him go.

"He's worried about you, Skye," Jemma offered sagely.

"What gave it away?" She replied, a little sour. Fitz picked his pen back up.

"He's probably thinking he's made the wrong choice," he said, sitting down at his computer. 

"But I can do this! It was one time! I just need him to give me another chance."

"He was probably having doubts long before he let you in the field," Jemma said, shining a light into Skye's left eye. Skye frowned and Jemma backtracked. "Oh, no, I meant he's just trying his best. This is his first time being S.O, and he's probably wanting it to go the best it can. First time failures are the worst. Besides, he didn't used to be very good at connecting with people, did he, now?"

"You can say that again," Fitz mumbled, tapping on his keyboard. "Oh, by the way, Jemma, the letter was in code, it wasn't just nonsense."

"Well, can you figure it out?" Jemma asked with a roll of her eyes.

"Of course I can," Fitz replied indignantly, digging the paper out of his pocket.

"Skye, Ward cares about you," Jemma said, returning to Skye's bruises. "He thinks everything that happens to you is his responsibility."

"I just want him to loosen the leash a bit!" Jemma smiled empathetically and poked her in her bruised ribs. Skye jerked sideways as a twinge of pain shot through her torso. "Ow!"

"Does that hurt?"

"Yeah, that's why I said ow!"

"Right. Sorry." She scribbled something on a piece of paper. "You won't be able to be in any combat situations for about a month, starting now."

"What? A month?"

"Skye, be reasonable. Bruised trachea and ribs, fractured nasal bone, twisted wrist, cracked tooth. You're not going to be punching anyone anytime soon. Or running anywhere. Or anything particularly strenuous, to be honest."

"Next you'll be telling me I can't even chew."

"Actually, you may want to lay off tough foods for a little bit. And I'll need to reset your tooth," Jemma said apologetically. Skye groaned.

"Ugh, you have got to be kidding me!" Jemma opened her mouth to apologise again, but at that moment, Coulson spoke over the comms.

"Upstairs, agents. Ready for briefing." Fitz looked up.

"We're going again?"

"I don't think it'll be us," Jemma conceded. "But it'll be hostile this time. Welcome Wagon didn't work, obviously." Skye scoffed.

"Yeah, obviously."

††††††††††††††††††††††††††††

The briefing was a cold affair. Ward was leaning back from the table, eyebrows lowered over his eyes and jaw set. Skye feared for Faul's safety if Ward was on the warpath. May was serious as always, but Coulson was off-kilter. Acting like they'd taken a major hit, which didn't make sense. Fitzsimmons were standing weirdly close together, the coded letter still in Fitz's gloved hand. They'd scanned it for fingerprints at least twice, but found only Faul's. Still, Fitz was determined to leave evidence uncontaminated.

"The direction she was heading was towards the town of Hale Hill, which makes sense. She'll be on the run from now on, so she'll need supplies."

"If I was her, I'd find a friend," Skye cut in. Everyone looked at her. "You know, like someone who's nice to you, who you have a personal relationship with..." No one laughed. Until-

"Oh," Fitz said, like he'd come across an epiphany. "She's joking." Ward's eyebrows descended even more. He looked like the Gruffalo. Skye rolled her eyes.

"Anyway...I would find someone to get stuff like clothes, money, food, weapons...?"

"I don't know," May said, eyes on Faul's information. "It says she moved, cutting all ties. That's probably because she has powers, and she doesn't want anyone to find out about them. So making friends would make no sense. And going to them while on the run would make even less sense." Skye deflated.

"We'll ask around," Coulson offered. "But I feel like May is probably right." Skye shrugged, then regretted it when she felt a shot of pain slice through her ribs. She winced.

"Whatever you say. AC." Coulson spared her the barest of 'shut up' glances and she scowled. Everyone was so freaking serious. All. The. Time.

"Ward, you go on foot. I'll take a car. May, you run point."

"Wait, what do we do?" Skye interjected.

"Try not to get yourself beaten up again would be a good start," Ward said. Skye glared at him.

"Stay on the Bus." Coulson turned back to Ward and May, and Skye's jaw fell openm that was it? Stay on the Bus? She wanted to do something to help, at least. But Coulson seemed to have his mind made up. "Faul is volatile now. She knows we're on her tail, so she knows she's now a fugitive. And that's not going to stop her from potentially doing anything illegal. She probably won't use her powers, but if she does, we need to get her away from town. We don't know how powerful she is."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second attempt does not go well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad language warning!!! Some cursing

The rain was still going by the time she'd reached the town. She wished she'd picked some better shoes: her converse were black with mud and her feet were soaked. Her knee was bleeding through the rip in her jeans that had opened when the girl had grabbed her leg, and there was mud all over her jacket. But she still had her bag, that had to count for something. No matter that an evil corporation was chasing her down, intent on harvesting her for some weird experiment. And they thought a letter would make her trust them? Who even send letters nowadays? 

She ducked into the shelter of Trainer's Groceries, away from the rain and the streets, full of bustling people and colourful umbrellas.

"Harper! Hey!" The guy at the counter gave her a cheerful wave. She ignored him. "You okay?" She ignored him again, walking past the counter to the back room, where Jake Trainer was watching TV.

"Jake."

"G'on! Take 'im down! Bite him! Fuckin' whip his ass! Yes boy!"

"Jake!" Someone on the TV roared in triumph and Jake copied, beating his chest. "Jake!" He jumped, spilling beer all over his shirt.

"The hell-! Oh, it's you. Whaddaya want?" He turned back to the TV, taking a slurp of his beer.

"Where's Hallie?" Hallie was Jake's wife. And an absolute nightmare. Maybe even worse than Jake. He waved a hand vaguely at the stairs. "Upstairs?"

"Nah..." He was completely engrossed in the TV again, jaw slack, eyes glazed. Harper crossed the room, leant over him and grabbed him by the ear. He squealed like a chicken and wriggled, but she held on.

"Where the fuck is Hallie?"

"She gone, she gone, okay?"

"Christ, was it that hard to say?" Harper let go of him and he rubbed his ear indignantly. Hallie had left? She needed a weapon, and Hallie was the easiest to coax out of hers. She also needed money, and it wasn't like Hallie would miss any of hers.

"Crazy bitch..."

"Whatchu say?" Harper barked, narrowing her eyes at him. He slurped his beer and sunk into his seat.

"Nu'n."

"Good. Where's your gun?" That, finally, got his attention.

"You ain't takin' my gun! Back off! Whatcha wannit for anyways?"

"Shootin' people, you brainless stink. Where is it?" He waved his beer can at her woozily.

"You can't have it." 

"Is it in the kitchen?" He snorted. 

"...no." Harper opened the door to the kitchen, spotted it lying on the table, and picked it up. Fully loaded. Good. She might get arrested if she got found, but she didn't care. The way she was going, she'd rather be picked up by the police than chased all over bloody U.S.A by some bunch of fanatics. 

Someone came in through the shop door at the front, startling Harper into action. Money. She shoved the gun into her inside jacket pocket and began to rifle through all the drawers. Finally, she found a wad of about twenty ten dollar bills, decided it was good enough, and stowed it away inside her bag. That customer was having an awful long talk with the guy at the counter. Harper closed the kitchen curtains. Definitely the letter sender, looking for her. She slipped back into the back room and Jake looked up.

"Betcha din't find it, huh, Faul?" He said cheerfully, loudly. Harper cursed as the conversation in the shop front suddenly ceased. "Knew ya didn't, ya blonde babe," Jake said with a laugh.

"Shut it, Jake," she hissed. Someone was coming towards the back room. What should she do? Stairs? Kitchen? Hide? She ran back into the kitchen and opened the back door into the yard, then closed it softly behind her. The rain had stopped, thankfully. She waited. Damn, they were coming into the kitchen. She ran, vaulting the low fence at the end of the yard, right into another street. She stumbled into someone and they cursed at her, but she just kept running. Downhill. Save energy. Get to the gas station. They didn't know this place half as well as she did. No one did.

†††††††††††††††

Ward burst into the kitchen, and heard a creak of a fence from the end of the yard. He cursed and ran into the yard just to see Faul's head disappear downhill, amongst the sparse stream of people on the street. He ran after her, hopped the fence, and looked left. Nothing. He weaved through people, picking up pace on the slippery concrete.

"Don't see her, Coulson. Headed downhill on Tile Street," he panted into his comms. God, she was fast. How had she gotten away that quick? Then a blonde head of hair whipped around the corner ahead and Ward shouldered through a group of girls with umbrellas, skidding around the corner to see- an empty street. He looked left and right, but there were no hiding places, just houses with closed curtains and a gas station with a drive-thru half way down the road. He set out for it, started to run again. She couldn't get away this time. He owed it to Skye. 

He loosened his gun in his holster and slipped into the station's store as Coulson glided past in one of the S.H.I.E.L.D cars.

"She's not out the back," Coulson buzzed in through his ear. Ward walked through the aisles, tensed and ready. The store was silent. No one at the counter, even. And no one in the aisles. Ward pulled his gun out and turned off the safety, moving behind the counter, scanning any hiding places. 

Then he opened the door to the break room and scanned inside. It was dark back there, and there was a large pile of sacks on the ground. No Faul. Ward pulled out his torch and moved in. Those weren't sacks. They were the staff, unconscious and piled on top of each other. So she was here. Ward counted five people in the heap, then swept his torch over the rest of the break room. Nothing. 

He moved back out to the counter and there was someone in the aisles. There was a bang of a gun, taking him by surprise and Ward dropped to a crouch behind the counter, instincts kicking in. Bang! Again, and the card reader shattered. Ward rose and fired off two shots, exploding the confectionery aisle, then dropped back down again as the other returned fire.

"Coulson, I could use some help!" He yelled into his comms over the shooting. He wasn't even sure if it was Faul, really.

"Getting there," Coulson crackled. Ward saw him running past the window and the shooter switched targets, shattering the glass just behind Coulson each time they fired. Ward rose and fired and the shooter shouted in pain and dropped behind the magazine rack. Coulson reached the door and pulled it open and Ward moved out from behind the counter and suddenly, from the wounded shooter, a bright light grew and grew and then ***boom***

††††††††††††††††††††††††

The shockwave flattened the store and downed the gunmen and Harper lay in the middle of it all, clutching a bleeding wound in her arm and scared out of her wits. Her breath rattled quick in her chest, her heart palpitating wildly. Something above her started to crack and she whimpered. All the windows had been blown out, the counter blown to shrapnel and the racks of food lying everywhere, mostly destroyed. Where were the staff? Harper wondered distantly. She'd been in the aisles, moving silently when the man with the gun had come in, but she'd entered just before that, and the place had been empty. Had they cleared it out before she got there? Or was there a third party? Whichever it was, she had to run. And she had to control herself. That shockwave had definitely come from her, and it had disoriented her, seemingly born of panic from when she realised she'd been shot. She'd never done that before and it was bound to put her on someone's radar. For now, though, she needed to keep her head down and keep running. 

She got to her feet, albeit unsteadily, and made for the relatively unscathed break room. There was a back door there. The security cameras had probably been blown out from the blast. She opened the door to darkness, then stepped back, unsure. There was a pile of something in there, a solid heap. She didn't want to go further in. One of the gunmen stirred behind her, the tall, built one. Harper took her chances and shut the door behind her, crossing the dark break room and skirting the heap of...people? She stopped short and pulled out her gun again, swallowing hard. Her nerves were in tatters, there was something electrifying her from the inside out, and now suddenly here was a pile of dead people. Dead? No, unconscious. Harper scanned the rest of the room. Dark. Empty. She had to leave. She walked around the pile of people, trying to keep her breathing under control. If she didn't pull herself together, she was going to have a full-on panic attack. She grabbed the first aid bag from one of the shelves, shoved it in her backpack, and ran out the back door. 

††††††††††††††††††††††††††††

Ward woke with a ringing headache and something wet trickling into his eyes. He wiped it and his hand came away bloody. That was when he saw the destruction. The entire inside of the store had been ripped apart, wrappers and pages scattered, broken glass all over the floor, the large drink coolers blown to shrapnel. And no Coulson. Ward grabbed the remains of the counter and hauled himself to his feet, ignoring the numbness in his left leg and the constant, deafening ringing in his ear.

"Coulson?" Nothing. "Sir?" Ward staggered through the rubble, searching for any sign of Coulson. Still nothing. A stand had collapsed by the door and Ward made his way over to it, hoping that the cloth he saw underneath was part of Coulson's suit. He fell to his knees and lifted it with shaking hands, just enough to relieve pressure on the body underneath. Coulson groaned and shifted and sucked in air.

"Ouch," he muttered. Ward lifted the stand to rest it on his shoulder, somehow exhausted from the simple test. Coulson crawled out from under it and sat up, kneading his head.

"You okay, sir?" 

"Yeah. Yikes, that was impressive." Ward dropped the stand and joined Coulson in staring around at the ruined store.

"I think I'd rather call it dangerous," Ward replied. Coulson blew out a breath and they sat in recovery for a second.

"Your comms still active?" He asked after a while. Ward dug his earpiece out and shook his head.

"We lost her again, sir." Coulson nodded.

"Yes, we did."

"She's volatile. She blew up property."

"Yes, she did."

"We need to take her in forcefully." Coulson sighed.

"We do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies, I don't know how to do italics on here lol


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally caught, but not by the Clairvoyant, Harper thinks the nightmare is over. She’s wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyy so it’s been ages ahaha I feel like I owe this to you guys even though it’s not remotely good also italics yay and FLASHBACK ALERT Tiana Lewis/Harper Faul finally gets kind of a backstory enjoy

Harper was running out of options. Since the attack at the gas station store, she'd gotten on a cross country bus to Boston, and now here she was, curled in a seat that smelt like sweat, a bandage wrapped around her arm, looking for all the world like a tramp with nowhere else to go. Well, she supposed that was true. All she had was her bag and her wits, and she hardly even had any of those left. For the second time in her twenty eight years, she was utterly terrified and completely alone. She tucked her knees into her chest and picked the mud away from her jeans, trying not to fall asleep. Who knew what could happen?

_FLASHBACK_

_There was something wrong. With her. She was wrong, she could feel it. Something buzzing, something golden and terrifying and otherworldly. Tiana bent her head and muffled a scream against her knees. It couldn't be real. Soon, she would wake up from a dream, that would be it, she would be fine and normal. But no, this was real. She needed to run, hide, whatever. She knew what happened to people like her. They were hunted and locked up and cut open. She needed to leave, before something went wrong, before someone got hurt and she ended up in a padded white room and a straitjacket. Before she went mad._

_She straightened, shivering in terror, and turned on the tap, watching the water flow seamlessly into the white of the basin. The knees of her leggings were soaked in tears. The image flashed before her again, of the small golden box, of her hand reaching out to touch it. She cried out and gritted her teeth, but the memory replayed again and again. Buzzing at her._

_"Hey Lewis?" She froze, looking up through the mirror at the door behind her. "Tiana? You okay?" No. She was not. But she couldn't say. She should be alright. She'd been taken to the hospital, stitched back together, woken up. Like a miracle. But she knew it was the buzzing inside her that had kept her alive._

_"All good," she called back, attempting to keep the tremor out of her voice. A pause._

_"Well, if you need anything, just come to me, okay?"_

_"Yeah." Another pause. Footsteps, pacing away. She had to leave. Go anywhere but here. Quit the SAS, move to America, or Italy. Cut ties. Attempt to keep this danger hidden. New name, new passport, new life. She shoved her hands under the tap. As the water hit her skin, it fizzed and she drew her hands away again. Steam rose from her fingers as her heart rose to her throat. She gave a strangled sound of panic, her chest twinging with anxious pain and she tried to temper her fear, fixating on some sort of plan to leave. She was on her own now, completely alone. America, that's where she would go. Harper Faul, that's who she would be.  
_

†††††††††††††††††††††

"Sir, you might want to see this." Coulson looked over from Skye's attempt to track down Faul. Fitz still had the original letter in his hand, but now there was a half-done translation beside him, and his eyes were wide.

"What is it?" 

"It's signed," Fitz said, a slight warning tremor in his voice, "by the Clairvoyant." Coulson's face set in a frown. This damn Clairvoyant again.

"Damn it. What about the rest of it?" Fitz shrugged.

"I'm not there yet, but I assume it's some sort of recruitment message."

"Well, it makes sense they'd wanna recruit before they try take her in forcefully," Skye said, looking up. "That's what happened with Chan Ho Yin, right?"

"Then why did she run from us?" Coulson mused.

"Maybe she was going to meet them," May said. Fitz shook his head.

"Pretty sure there's no date or address or anything."

"How sure?" Ward asked.

"Pretty sure, because that would be the easiest part of the code to figure out, so I'd do that first," Fitz said without looking up, sounding a little irritated. Ward frowned. Coulson noticed he'd been unusually on edge for a little while now, since before Faul had blown up the gas station. Maybe it was to do with Skye. He put the thought away, making a note to ask Ward later, and focused on the task at hand.

"Skye, anymore luck?" Skye shook her head and sighed.

"Nope. No digital footprint, social media presence, I can barely even find any legal or banking records on her. This girl is good."

"Ward, you said when you went into the gas station, the staff were all in the break room, unconscious," May said. Ward nodded and Coulson looked over. What was she getting at?

"We questioned them when they woke up, but none of them knew what happened. We think they were probably gassed, or something."

"But Faul doesn't have the resources for that," May said slowly. Coulson considered that.

"You think there was a third party?" He asked.

"I think maybe she's working with somebody. How do we know she hasn't already accepted the Clairvoyant's invitation?" Coulson nodded, thinking it over.

"It's possible," he answered. "But what we really need is her location and an interrogation. If anything else happens along her route before we find her, we may be able to put it down to a collaboration. Who knows, maybe we'll even catch the Clairvoyant's newest recruit."

"Got something," Skye called. Coulson turned his head so fast he almost cricked his neck. Ward went back to staring moodily at the table.

"Let's hear it?"

"Albany. Cross country bus stopped there a half hour ago, got security footage of someone, could be Faul, boarding a bus to Boston. The twelve thirty, stops at Springfield." She looked up from the table and Coulson looked over at May, but she was already gone.

"Everybody strap in. We're scrambling to Springfield."

†††††††††††††††††††††

The bus stopped at Albany, where Harper boarded, and then Springfield for quite a while along the way, adding about twenty minutes to the three hour long journey. Harper sunk down in her seat and turned her face away from the window when they drew into Springfield Bus Terminal. God knew who was looking for her, but they wouldn't find her. Three years in the SAS had taught her a thing or two about...well, everything. 

The bus sat there, making her more and more nervous. She tried to calm down, but ever since that buzzing _thing_ had started to show, sometimes in little bursts of light, or the heat rising from her skin in waves, ever since _then_ , she could never temper her paranoia. 

After twenty minutes had passed, and no one had left or entered the bus, Harper's pulse was starting to quicken even more. She tried to breathe properly. She couldn't risk a show here. People would get hurt, and someone would find her. Maybe the police, or S.H.I.E.L.D would find her, but maybe the Clairvoyant would get there first. Like he had in Hale Hill. Her hands were starting to shake. She stood, grabbed her bag, pulled her cap out of it and made her way down the aisle to the bus driver, who looked up from his phone.

"Alright, love?" He asked.

"Is there time to go to the bathroom?" Harper asked, trying her best to imitate an American accent. The driver checked his watch, and shrugged.

"Sure. We'll wait up." Harper smiled and climbed down the steps, putting her cap on her head and pulling it low down over her face. It wasn't much of a disguise, but it would do.

She ducked into the terminal and made a beeline for the lavatory, slipping past everyone, unnoticed. No one was in there. Not unusual, seeing as it stank of cigarette smoke and piss. She locked herself in a stall and sank to the greasy tiled floor, burying her face in her hands and willing her muscles to stop trembling, her heart to stop racing. She'd been trained for much worse situation. Get it together, Lewis. Faul, she corrected herself. She just couldn't get anything right. 

She took a huge gulp of air and blew it out, then steeled herself, stood and unlocked the stall, and stepped out. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and instinctively turned away, shouldering her bag. The bus was waiting.

†††††††††††††††††††††

"The driver's been bribed to leave without her," Ward said, joining Coulson at the ATM outside the terminal. True to his word, the bus behind them moved slowly off with a chuff and a squeak.

"May's in position," Coulson replied, punching in his PIN and taking the ten dollars that the machine spit out. Ward raised his eyebrows. "It's my cover," Coulson said in way of reply. A pause. "And there's a cash only sandwich bar. What if I get hungry?" Ward's mouth tightened. He didn't seem to appreciate the joke.

"Sir, I know this isn't the right time, but I need to talk to you later," Ward said out of the corner of his mouth as they walked towards the entrance.

"Speak normally Ward, we're undercover," Coulson reminded him, knowing exactly what this was about. "It's Skye, isn't it?" Ward gave a conceding nod. "Alright. We'll talk. Here she comes." Coulson had only just managed to spot her, even with the sparse crowd of people moving slowly around the bus terminal. She really was good at this. He looked over at Ward, and saw the agent's hand itching towards his shoulder holster. "Easy there. Don't wanna spook her and set off another atomic blast." Ward nodded and moved smoothly towards the front exit to block it off. Coulson circled to the back exit, and saw May near the side door. 

Faul walked to the entrance, saw that her bus was gone, and stopped dead in the doorway, but she barely looked panicked. Just calculating. Like she knew they were here. Then she turned and looked straight at Coulson. Damn. Just in time, he managed to rearrange his line of sight so that he seemed to be checking the bus times, but it didn't fool her. She checked her exits surreptitiously, spotted May, and walked out of the front exit with purpose. 

Ward stepped up, put a hand out to stop her and ask a question, and she flipped open his jacket, saw his gun, and ran. Coulson cursed and broke cover, shouldering through a group of men with wheelie suitcases, matching May step for step as they both raced for the entrance, Ward far in front as he chased Faul down the terminal and out onto the road. She dodged a car that blew its horn and leapt over the partition. Ward followed, pulling out his gun, and Coulson sped up. They couldn't risk a public show. 

Faul reached the other side of the road as Ward barely managed to avoid being run down by a truck, and Coulson lost sight of them momentarily as a large van zoomed across his vision, startling him backwards. May had no such qualms. She sprinted out onto the road, drawing her gun, too, and Coulson started after them all. Faul and Ward had disappeared on the other side of the hedge bordering the road, but when Coulson and May broke through, they looked left, then right, and saw Faul on her stomach and Ward standing triumphantly over her, gun focused on her kidneys.

"Nice work," panted Coulson, immensely relieved.

"Out of breath?" May commented, not even slightly stressed for air as Ward pulled Faul to her feet and handcuffed her. She looked absolutely terrified, and Coulson realised they had no identification.

"We're with S.H.I.E.L.D," he offered quickly. Faul's expression cleared, but only slightly, and Coulson frowned. Why would she be relieved that she'd been found out?

"Care to explain anything?" Ward asked roughly. Faul stared at him.

"We'll deal with that on the Bus," Coulson cut in. "Come on. Let's get moving before she slips away again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did ya like it?? Comment!! And also my other story on my account will be updated soon just as soon as I figure out what the heck is going on in it cool cool  
> Also I'm Hella bad at writing Coulson's perspective haha sorry


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is kind of filler it's really boring :(
> 
> Bad language alert!! Also Harper is a Brummie cause I say so
> 
> And Fitzsimmons and Skye are just a bunch of bickering siblings and Coulson is a tired dad

They'd left her in the prison room ages ago, after a blindfolded car ride, a stumble up a ramp and some stairs, and being stripped of her bag, her watch, her hat and her phone. Now she was handcuffed to the table, the metal warming from her skin, and she'd been waiting, waiting. The room was black and cuboid, hexagons etched into the walls in a regular lattice, a slab of a bed in the corner and a table and two chairs. Uniform. Orderly. The room made her itch, under that incessant buzzing, made her want to move around and breathe better and jump and talk and _make something happen_ . Every room was too small now. It was like having a claustrophobic roommate inside her head. 

At least it was S.H.I.E.L.D. She was still kicking herself at the fact that she'd panicked at the gas station, and not thought that the people tailing her might be trying to help. She'd conditioned herself into run, hide, run, hide, no matter who was looking for her. And now she was paying. That girl who'd run after her amongst the trailers, the one she'd knocked unconscious, had been yelling about trying to help. There definitely had to be some kind of punishment attached to beating up a government agent. Although, it wasn't Harper's fault they'd sent an untrained minor into the field. 

Her mind wandered back to the Clairvoyant's letter, and her blood seemed to boil a little. The buzzing inside her tightened somehow, like it was in her head, too, listening to her thoughts. The Clairvoyant was a few steps behind S.H.I.E.L.D, obviously, but they were going to be back. Still, now she thought about it, the scene at the gas station was confusing. S.H.I.E.L.D had arrived after she'd found the bodies. Had the Clairvoyant gotten there too? Would she have been attacked by them if S.H.I.E.L.D hadn't turned up? 

The door clicked, whirred, and was pushed gently open, interrupting her thoughts. The agent in the suit and tie, the older man, entered the room with another agent, the small woman with resting murder face. The man didn't seem too intimidating, just like some soft middle-class dad, but Harper knew looks like his hid something worse. She wasn't looking forward to this. Just being handcuffed made her antsy, and if she snapped in an interrogation, God, if she killed any of these people by accident... Just the thought of that whipped the buzzing into an incessant frenzy below the surface. She breathed in slowly and surely, staring down at the tabletop. There was a nick in it just beside her hand, only one. A single mark scratched into the smooth surface. She stared at it until the heat receded from her skin and her heartbeat slowed, completely oblivious to the words streaming from the male agent's mouth. She tried to tune in, and only just managed it. The buzzing was getting distracting, more so than usual. Like it was trying to warn her about something. A little too late, Harper thought bitterly.

"This will go so much easier if you talk," the man finished, a warning note to his voice. Harper looked up. What did they think she was trying to do?

†††††††††††††††††††††

Skye sat with Fitz and Simmons in the lab, an ice pack strapped to her ribs, watching the interrogation on the screens. Faul seemed shaky and angry, the polar opposite to May's cool demeanour.

"What's her accent?" Skye wondered aloud. She knew it sounded different to Simmons's, but she would never have been able to place it.

"Birmingham," Simmons replied distractedly. "Fitz, did you finish that letter, by the way?"

"No, I think it's in another language," Fitz said. He was still poring over the letter, a frown creasing his entire face. Skye tilted her head to see the paper.

"Hey, let me try," she offered. The others both looked at her and she shrugged. "I might be able to get something, at least." Fitz raised his eyebrows and Simmons gave her a sceptical side eye. Rude. She sighed. "Please don't look at me like that. I can do stuff too. Come on, hand it over."

†††††††††††††††††††††

Coulson sat down at his desk, opposite Ward, and turned the interrogation on his screen to mute.

"So what is it?" He asked, fairly sure he knew what was coming. Ward looked down at the desk with a hard stare like he always did when he was deciding whether or not to contrast Coulson's own orders. "Go on. I like to take my team's interests into consideration. I'm not gonna tell you off."

"We put Skye in the field too early," Ward rushed. Coulson's stomach sank a little. He couldn't have Ward, of all people, doubting himself, or the team.

"You think so?" Ward looked up.

"She was no where near ready."

"You think she should be able to take down a highly trained ex-SAS officer before we let her out on missions? She's proved herself before, Ward." 

"I think she should at least be able to hold her own against me," Ward argued.

"All she wants is to be with us to help S.H.I.E.L.D."

"With all due respect, sir," Ward replied with a strain to his voice, "She is not ready for this." Coulson nodded. Really, he blamed himself. Maybe he should have let Ward keep her in at training for longer. And now this was happening.

"Thank you, Agent Ward. You are dismissed." Ward nodded, rose from his chair and left, closing the door quietly behind him. Coulson turned the sound on from the interrogation and rested his head on his hand. This mission, this woman, was throwing his team off. Or was he? Was he the reason Skye had been beaten unconscious, was it his fault Ward was doubting his responsibility?

†††††††††††††††††††††

"I didn't mean to hurt anybody," Harper tried. "I wasn't-- I didn't know you were S.H.I.E.L.D." The man looked at the woman and nodded, then turned and walked out, closing the door behind him with a click. There was a short silence, and the tethered buzzing growled inside her. The woman dragged her chair out excruciatingly slowly, then sat down in it and rested her hands on the table, holding Harper's gaze the entire time. Harper glanced away from the eye-lock and down at the table. "I swear I'm legal," she said. Everything was setting her on edge. She was about to start sweating. God, she was bloody well trained for this. What was wrong with her?

"We know. That's not what you're here for," the woman replied. Her voice was a hard monotone.

"I didn't do anything," Harper tried again, unable to look up again. Her fingers were clenched in a fist of their own accord, white-knuckled and shaking. She just couldn't get it together. She wasn't scared anymore, she was knocked out of sync. She was confused, and this buzzing was _so frustrating_ and this woman was pissing her off. Get to the point, maybe.

"You blew up a gas station. You knocked out the entire staff and tied them up."

"That wasn't me," Harper said through gritted teeth. The woman tilted her head.

"Then who was it?"

"I ain't got control. I don't know what this is. You gotta help me!"

"Help you with what?" There was a heat behind her eyes. Building.

"I didn't knock 'em out, I swear. I got there--" 

"There was no one else on the scene." So calm, while calling her a liar.

"Whaddaya think I'm trying to do?" Harper hissed. Were her hands steaming, or was that just her? The woman was still staring her down.

"We don't know, exactly. But we found your letter." Shit. So that was what it looked like. "You cannot sit there and tell me you have nothing to do with your correspondents--"

"I don't!"

"You need to stop lying. You heard him. It's better if you talk."

"I'm not lying!" The heat burst somewhere inside her and she lunged across the table at that calm, set face, completely forgetting about the handcuffs. They sawed on her skin and the woman reached up, fast as light, and slammed Harper's head into the table. Stars burst in front of her eyes and pain burst behind her nose and she slumped back into the seat, eyes watering and head ringing.

"What the fuck? Agh, what the hell? Jesus Christ!"

"Don't try to do that again," the woman warned. The anger and the buzzing had been shattered, and now she could hardly even breathe properly. She bent her head over her cuffed hands, blinking away tears, and something warm dripped from her nose to her fingers. 

"You can't just do what you want to me! This ain't the fucking mafia!"

"You're currently in league with a terrorist, so I'd not be so sure of what we can't do," the woman replied coolly. Harper shook her head to get rid of that drowsiness coming over her. Definitely concussion.

"I'm not," she repeated in a growl. "And I'm pretty sure this isn't fucking legal."

"You will tell me everything you know about the Clairvoyant," the woman replied coolly. That goddamn Clairvoyant.

"I don't know anything," Harper said thickly, pushing her hand against her nosebleed. "Guys with stupid names like that usually jog on after a bit. Some sad twat in a cellar, I guarantee."

"We know-"

"You don't know fucking anything about me!" Silence from the woman. Harper looked up, made eye contact, tried to make her understand. She needed help. "I swear on my Mom, if I'd deffed off that letter, that psycho woulda hunted me down and tried to dissect me. Cause that's what he does to freaks like me." The woman leant forwards.

"You're gonna kill someone if you keep going on like this," she said through her teeth. Harper tilted her head.

"Did you not hear me ask you to help?"

†††††††††††††††††††††

"So how many languages do you speak?" Fitz asked over Skye's shoulder. Skye swatted him away.

"I'm thinking, okay? I at least might be able to make it make sense. I may not be a genius, but I'm great at pattern recognition."

"Ever humble," Simmons said under her breath. Skye scowled.

"Stop doubting me. It's not like you figured it out before me."

"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt," Fitz quoted and Simmons looked like she was holding back a laugh. Skye went over those words for a second, and then her mouth dropped open.

"Uh, rude!"

"What's going on?" They all looked up as Ward appeared in the doorway of the lab, arms crossed. Skye tried not to marvel at the way his muscles stretched his shirt when he did that.

"I am solving this letter, and these two are taking me down a peg or two, apparently," Skye said, directing her attitude at Fitz.

"I'm just saying that-"

"And can you do it?" Ward asked, walking forwards. Skye paused, having been completely sure he was going to tell her to give the letter back to Fitz and stop trying.

"I guess, if Doubting Thomas here gets off my back," Skye said, waving vaguely in Fitz's direction.

"It's probably in another language," Fitz protested.

"Yeah, well, you don't know any languages," Skye argued.

"He knows a bit of French," Simmons butted in.

"Oh, helpful," Skye said, rolling her eyes.

"That's enough," Ward barked, and they all fell silent. "Skye, can you do it or not?" Skye looked at him. Maybe this was a way to prove herself, to pull his head out of his ass for him.

"Give me an hour."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harper's lost control

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's short  
> And super awful  
> Lol

"Is she clean?" Ward asked as May walked into the lab. Skye tried to ignore them and focus. 

_They...know...what..._

"I don't know. I needed a break," May said. 

"Maybe I should-"

"I've got something," Skye interrupted. Ward only looked mildly annoyed for a small second, and Fitzsimmons scrambled over. Fitz was muttering under his breath, and Skye allowed herself a moment of smugness. May got there first, picked up the translation.

"They know what you are," she read in an unimpressed tone of voice. Skye looked around at them all. No one was reacting.

"That sounds more like a threat than a recruitment letter," Simmons observed.

"So she's clean?" Fitz asked. He seemed to have gotten over the fact that Skye was better at pattern recognition than him. Skye grinned secretly.

"Not necessarily," Ward said thoughtfully. "She could have planted it."

"But then why would she have run?" May prompted. Ward nodded slowly.

"We should keep the interrogation going, but it's a good chance she's not in the wrong." He looked up at Skye from under his eyebrows and she tilted her head, expecting a grunt of approval, or at least a nod. "Good work," he said, and walked off. Skye choked on air, swung around to look at Fitzsimmons.

"Did he just-?" May rolled her eyes and walked off after Ward. Fitz was looking distinctly impressed. "Did he just give me a _compliment_?!"

†††††††††††††††††††††

The prison door swung open again, but it wasn't the suit-guy or murder-face. It was the massive muscly guy who'd put her in handcuffs outside the bus terminal. He hadn't been gentle, and he didn't look very happy at the moment. Harper wiped more blood off her nose and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Canna have my bag back?" He didn't answer. Instead, he took a seat and slapped a piece of paper on the table in front of her. She didn't need to look to know it was the letter.

"We translated it."

"Okay. Why are you so pissed?" She asked. She was still reeling from having her head slammed against the table, so she wasn't really in the mood for games. Muscles leaned in.

"Who's the Clairvoyant?" She rolled her eyes.

"I dunno."

"Why'd you hide the letter?"

"I thought you lot were him. How long did it take you to translate it, by the way? Took me about twenty minutes." He seemed about to say something, but then the door burst open again and a girl leaned in, panting. She wore her hair loose this time, but Harper saw the way her nose was bruised a little and cringed inside. Oops. It was the kid she'd beaten up. Muscles twisted in his chair indignantly.

"Skye-"

"Let me do it," she panted. Harper looked between them. What? "Let me interrogate her." Muscles frowned.

"Skye, you don't have clearance-"

"You don't need clearance to do an interrogation if your S.O. says you can," she interrupted. "I checked."

"Well, I say you can't," Muscles growled. "I'm in the middle of something."

"Let her do it," Harper crowed from the other side of the table, thoroughly enjoying this exchange. She rattled her handcuffs. The buzzing jumped around a little. "Come on, Muscles. Let her do it!" 

"Shut up," Muscles snapped without turning around. Skye didn't even spare Harper a glance.

"Coulson said I could," she said triumphantly, and Muscles seemed to cave.

"Fine," he conceded through gritted teeth. Skye beamed like he'd just given her heaven and earth, and threw herself down in the seat opposite Harper after Muscles stood. "But I'm staying right here." Skye rolled her eyes and Muscles stepped back against the wall, crossing his arms like a security guard.

"What up?" Harper asked. Skye smiled.

"I'm Skye."

"I know."

"Where you from?" Harper narrowed her eyes. Only one person gets to be nonchalant in an interrogation, or they don't get anywhere. She leaned back and rested her wrists on the table.

"Birmingham."

"Is it nice there?" Skye asked, spinning the translation with a manicured fingernail. Harper resisted the urge to reach over and crack all ten of them.

"No, it's a shithole." Skye blinked. 

"Right." She tapped the letter. "I just translated this-"

"Goody for you."

"-and we think you planted it." Harper had to stop herself from groaning loudly. Could you get any thicker?

"You do, do you?" The buzzing was whipping up a storm, feeding off her frustration.

"Did you?"

"Did _you_?" Harper spat. 

"Maybe you'll feel more like talking with an incentive." Harper scoffed.

"Okay. What are you gonna do?" She mocked. Skye set her laptop on the table, opened it. Tap, tap, click go those manicured fingernails.

_Buzzzzz_

Skye spun the laptop around, showing Harper the screen, and Harper's heart squeezed and skipped a beat. The caravan park. Laken, her next door neighbor, her friend, her secret-keeper. Sitting on his front porch, drawing on a cigarette.

"What are you-- doing?" Harper asked shakily.

"We have two S.H.I.E.L.D agents on-site, ready to apprehend him for drug-dealing. The local authorities have been alerted and are on standby. I understand you two cover for each other a lot."

Harper glared. Dangerous territory, girlie. She jerked her head towards Muscles.

"You know, you could just get your boyfriend here to do the threatening." Skye smiled, again.

"Him? Oh, I don't think I need to."

_Buzzzzz_

"Don't-" the words wouldn't come out. Her fingers shook. Skye tilted her head.

"Reconsidering?"

"Don't you fucking dare." The sentence was stuttering. No one would ever trust her again if she'd let S.H.I.E.L.D get the drop on Laken. Not to mention he'd go to prison for life. Skye leaned forward.

"Wanna talk?"

"About what?" Harper asked. She kept her eyes on the screen.

"The Clairvoyant."

"I dunno."

"The heap of bodies in the gas station you blew up."

"I dunno." Laken sat there, oblivious. 

_Buzzzzz_

"Who else knows about your powers?"

"No one."

"Why'd you run?"

"You translated the fuckin' letter, you tell me!" Harper exploded.

"No." Skye pulled the laptop towards herself. "I'm asking the questions. You're the one in handcuffs. Why'd you run?" Something glinted on Skye's wrist. A bracelet? Like a cuff.

"That kinda looks like a handcuff to me," Harper countered, trying to push down the buzzing, once again. She nodded at the bracelet. Skye twitched. Bingo. "What'd you do?"

"I wouldn't go there, if I were you," Skye replied quietly, with a significant nod to Muscles. Harper eyed him. He looked just about ready to punch a hole in the wall.

"Okay, then. I ran 'cuz there's a psychopath on my tail who wants to cut me open and drink my blood or some vampire shit like that!"

"What about the gas station workers?"

"I don't know!" Harper yelled. The metal around her wrists was getting warm. Skye was eyeing it.

"We getting close to another atomic blast?" Muscles spoke up. Harper gritted her teeth.

"Why dontcha stick around and find out," she growled. Muscles flicked a look at the door.

"Skye," he warned.

"No," Skye replied. "Harper, where did the letter come from? Who else was in the gas station with you?"

_Buzzzzz_

"I don't know. I didn't see them."

_Buzzzzzz_

"And there was nothing else in the letter?"

"I thought you translated it," Harper said through closed teeth. She was starting to sweat from pressing down the buzzing. 

"Not all of it. Can you tell me what the rest of it said?" Harper knew she was shaking. Shaking like a rumbling machine. About to explode.

"You just threatened me. Why amma gonna help you?" She could hardly get the words out. 

_Buzzzzzz_

"Skye." 

"Muscles is getting antsy," Harper breathed.

"Not yet," Skye said, apparently oblivious. "What was in the letter?" Harper couldn't hold on any longer. It was right under her skin. Lifting under her. Warming.

"You might wanna-" she didn't get to finish. She yanked herself under the table and BOOM


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team has a lead. And a death wish, apparently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cool so this is terrible. Enjoy.

Harper half-woke with a slab of a cold table beneath the bare skin of her shoulders. Something itched in her wrist, and the ceiling that swam and blurred above her was grey and clean. Someone spoke, burbling, as if through water, and she tried to force open her eyelids. The breath filling her lungs was slow and warm, as if the oxygen in the air was just bubbles of honey.

"Put her under again," someone said, through a cloudy haze. 

"I can't! It took twice the normal dose the first time, who knows what it'll do to her!"

"We gotta keep her from blowing up again and killing us all, don't we?"

"You know what? Get out of my lab. Go on, out! You're not helping." Harper took a syrupy breath, her heart kicking up as she tried to breathe properly. The air just wouldn't move any faster. Somewhere near her head, an ear-splitting beep sounded and she jerked instinctively, but the movement didn't reach further than her shoulders, and she started to panic, still stuck in a half-conscious state. She tried to lift her head and her neck muscles strained, but nothing moved. "God, look what you've done," said the second voice crossly, drifting lazily into Harper's ears. Harper tried to swallow, move her tongue, her eyelids, anything. Nothing worked. _Doof, doof, doof,_ thumped her pulse, wilder and faster with each passing moment as she panicked. The grey ceiling swam as a blur of a face leant over her.

"No need to worry," said a woman's Sheffield accent that seemed to come from a foot beside the mouth moving. "You're still in S.H.I.E.L.D custody. You're safe. You had a little meltdown in the interrogation room, so we had to sedate you for everyone's safety." Harper managed a grunt from somewhere below her diaphragm, the world cloaking her head like a furry blanket. Her sight was clearing a little, she was waking up. Her mouth, filling with saliva, her throat starting to work. Her tongue unstuck from the bottom of her mouth and the air flowed into her lungs now. Soon, she was gasping for breath, eyes wide and chest heaving. An IV, in her arm. A lab-coated doctor, holding a needle with a plunger. Syringe, Harper's slow brain thought. That's a syringe. But the doctor moved to a box on another table and put the syringe away, and Harper pushed her panic down. There was a clicking and tapping somewhere in the distance, incessant. Harper was too unfocused to try and figure out what it was.

"Is the girl okay?" She asked, her voice heaving itself tiredly through her mouth. The sounds echoed in her eardrums, and the whole ordeal was a little like pushing herself out of a grave.

"Skye is fine," the Sheffield doctor said primly. "Although you did rile Agent Ward up even more with your little accident."

"Is it my fault…" Harper trailed off as her thoughts lost track of themselves.

"Give yourself a moment to wake up," the doctor said, pushing a piece of hair behind her ear as she tucked the syringe box away in a cupboard. Harper looked over at her. So _young_. "I took blood scans and brain scans and bone scans and did pretty much every test I could think of, but I haven't yet managed to unravel the mystery of your powers, so when you are awake, I'm afraid I have some questions for you." Wonderful. 

"Am I still an enemy of the state?" Harper asked, blinking rapidly to get her brain to focus, only half joking.

"Yes. You are. Fitz, come here and look at this." The woman was bent over a microscope on the next table, and as she spoke, the tapping stopped. A keyboard, Harper realised. Footsteps heralded the arrival of a man with curly hair and a shadow of an early beard over his jaw. Small. Just as young as the woman. Harper squinted at them both, her muscles groaning as they woke up. The man, Fitz, bent over the microscope, and when he spoke, his voice was muffled against the apparatus, but Harper heard the Scottish accent well enough. S.H.I.E.L.D spread their wings wide.

"You showed me the exact thing ten minutes ago, Simmons," he said gruffly, straightening again and flicking a glance at Harper, without subtlety. 

"Yes, I was hoping I might have missed something."

"You should take more samples," Fitz suggested, putting his hands on his hips. "Or take it from somewhere else. Increase the variety. No, that's not the word. Sample pool?" Simmons gave a non-committal _hummm_ and bent over the microscope. Harper pulled her knees into a triangle with the table surface and turned onto her side, bracing a hand on the edge and heaving herself into a sitting position. The world swam and she was glad she was sitting down. Her muscles were burning, for some reason, in her back and her abdomen and her arms. Her throat stung with bile for a second and her arms trembled, but she held herself there, breathing slowly. Her vision was going a little grey, and somewhere through the haze, Fitz's hand was on her arm, steadying her. It was very warm. The only thing she could hear was her own fast breathing, but through that, he was talking. Scottish accents were so nice. She suddenly gave a violent shiver, and the hairs on her arms started to stand up.

"Where's my shirt?" She mumbled. Then, "Shirt… please." Her head was still whizzing. There was a rustle from further away and she blinked back the greyness. As her vision started to clear again, like static fading, her t-shirt was pressed into her hands. She tugged it on with shaking fingers, and her elbows bent like rusty robot joints: staggered motions, juddering. None of her movements were as smooth as before. When her sight finally came back, the two doctors were standing side by side and staring at her, with matching expressions. Curiosity. Eagerness.

"We'd like to ask you a few questions, if that's alright," said the woman, Simmons. Simmons, Harper repeated in her head. Don't forget. Fitz and Simmons.

"Knock yourselves out," Harper replied, her voice as rusty as the rest of her body. She'd woken up from general anesthesia before, but it hadn't been nearly as bad as this. She wondered if S.H.I.E.L.D had developed a special knock-out serum for badly-behaved super people. Simmons readied a pen against a clipboard on the table, beside Harper's arse, and Fitz crossed his arms.

"So, when and how did you get your powers?" Simmons asked eagerly. Harper chewed on the inside of her cheek. Almost a year of suppressing that memory obviously hadn't done her any good, then. She was tempted to skim over the details, for her own sanity, but she wasn't in handcuffs anymore. She'd asked them to help. Maybe this was their strange way of doing it. So she started the story.

_No one was told all the details. It was hostage rescue and opposition elimination, from an occupied, mostly empty village, and they weren't even supposed to go too far in. They were the first team, small and striking, the best squadron in the SAS. Then there'd be a clean up team after them, doing the rest of the dirty bits._

_It went well. Seven hostages, rescued and evacuated by Cohen and Mavi and Chadwick while Tiana, Zeeth and Tenant held down the fort inside. Half the opposition eliminated. Morale high, snipers practically unused. And then it went south. Major Tenant, the OC of the mission, insisted on an all round check to count up the oppo before the helpers got there._

_They split up and snuck around the rest of the opposition, casing the village to help out with the clean-up later. Tiana found a safe in a room, gleaming and new. Not, surely, the property of the village. And it was giving off this buzzing. Like those super high whistles you think you can hear, but you can really only feel the way they tickle your eardrums. It was hypnotic, and as she approached it, she gripped her rifle, white-knuckled. Her head spun with possibilities. Bombs, a trap, some paranormal shite. Maybe it was a trick of the low light, but that shit was **glowing**. _

_The safe was complicated, but she was up to the challenge. She was up to every challenge. She clipped her sling closed and shifted the rifle to her hip, tugged her gloves further down her wrists. It was a rotary combination, then a tumbler pin lock. Easy. Somewhere in the back of her brain, something was screaming **bad idea, abort, abort!** She didn't listen. She thought of challenges and combinations and how fucking awesome it'd be to crack a safe on a combat mission. Like a goddamn Tom Cruise film. She didn't think of the chewing out she'd get from Tenant, or whatever the hell was making that buzzing noise. She reached for the combination lock, light spilled from the keyhole behind it, and everything went white._

Fitz and Simmons stared at her.

"So you just…touched it?" Simmons asked incredulously.

"While it was buzzing?" Fitz interjected.

"Without proper authorization or protection?" Simmons's voice got a little high and Harper scowled.

"I know, believe me. Ent a good idea, 'specially in that circumstance. Though, I was a fucking Yampy about cracking challenge back then."

"I have...next to no idea what that last sentence meant, but could you tell us what happened to the safe after that?" Fitz said. Harper shrugged.

"Dunno. I asked, but they wouldn't say. To be fair, the most talking I got from anyone about that was Tenant bawlin' and shoutin' till he was purple." Simmons pursed her lips and scribbled on the clipboard.

"Alright. Could you describe how receiving the powers felt?"

†††††††††††††††††††††

They railed her with questions for the next half hour, barely pausing to draw information out of her. Harper figured they were better interrogators than their field agents, but then, they weren't asking difficult and annoying questions while simultaneously threatening to jail her only friend. 

Then when they were done, Agent Muscles came stomping down the stairs outside the glass doors of the lab with a glare that could melt diamonds. He took one look at Harper and practically slavered.

"Why the hell is she not in handcuffs?" He snapped. Simmons just rolled her eyes.

"For heaven's sake," she groaned. "She's not killed us yet, I think we can trust her. Besides, you should really have figured out by now that it's stressful situations that trigger her powers."

"Yeah, she can't control them," Fitz added from his computer. A muscle ticked in Muscles' jaw. Harper smiled innocently at him, and he yanked a pair of handcuffs from his belt and held them up.

"Well, playtime's over," he growled. Simmons and Fitz erupted into protest, but Muscles just silenced them both with a scorching glare, and stalked towards Harper. The cold metal clicked around her wrists once more, and for the first time since waking up, Harper could feel the buzzing again. Under her skin. She didn't suppose that was a good sign, but she let Muscles lead her up the stairs and into a narrow hallway. Past some bunks with closed doors, and out into a large living-room-like space. The furniture and design was all beautiful, but none of it hid the fact that Harper was, indeed, on a plane. The first window they came to, she craned her head to look out, but only saw an expanse of white sky before Muscles yanked her onwards. Into another room, this one with a large, screened table and a screen across from it. There, Suit Guy and Murder-Face were standing together, and Harper saw her fake credentials up on the screen. So they hadn't cracked her yet. They saw her and Muscles, and Suit Guy gestured towards the screen.

"You're good, I'll give you that," he said, without enthusiasm. "But we need your real identity before we can get any further." Harper shook her head.

"Sorry, man. No can do." 

"You need more incentive?" Muscles growled from behind her. Harper didn't acknowledge him.

"Not really in the mood ta give you anything, to be honest," Harper carried on. Suit glanced at Murder. Harper could still feel blood drying in her nose. Down her throat. It was making her even more nauseated.

"Can you give us the whereabouts of your CO, Major Tenant?" Everyone turned to see Fitz and Simmons making their side-by-side way to the table. Simmons tapped her clipboard and looked at Murder with an air of smugness. "She gave us lots of medical information, including how she got her powers."

"I feel like you should take notes, Ward," said Fitz. "A person says a lot when they're not busy being threatened." Muscles huffed like a spooked horse and Fitz backed away, clearing his throat. "Anyway, Major Tenant?" He asked nervously. Harper considered it, then shrugged. What harm could it do? She'd been keeping tabs on Tenant for six months, and she knew he'd quit the SAS to retire just two months after she'd left. It's not like she was giving S.H.I.E.L.D British intelligence.

"Alright." She held out her hands to be uncuffed, and Ward gave a short, unamused laugh.

"You can manage," he said. Harper frowned and moved to the table. It was pretty cool, like a giant iPad. She felt like James Bond, swiping across the huge screen. Only problem, the keyboard was also huge, so when she went to type something in, she had to move her entire body from key to key. If she could access her personal files remotely from here, seeing as they wouldn't give her back her bag… She didn't know if she could be bothered to hack her own data, so she gave up after about thirty seconds and turned to Suit Guy.

"I need my laptop," she said.

"Like hell," snapped Ward. Okay, he was starting to get on her nerves.

"We're like thirty thousand feet above the ground," she railed at him. "What the hell amma gonna do with me laptop? Turn it into a parachute? Stuff it before I make you." In the seconds that followed, Harper figured she shouldn't have lost her cool, especially since Ward was now giving her the evil eye, but Suit Guy just nodded at Murder, and in ten seconds, her laptop was on the table in front of her, unharmed.

"You better hope you didn't clart about with it," Harper said darkly, reaching for the keys. "Or I might just be eternally locked out and we'd 'ave it dark." They hadn't tried to hack it, thank God. Harper easily brought up everything she had on Tenant and started to project it onto the screen, then stepped back with a 'there you go' gesture.

"Why'd you keep tabs on him?" Murder asked as Fitz started taking notes.

"Cause he seemed half-soaked after the safe thing, and not like he was sane, so when I left, I figured I'd better keep an eye on him."

"Half-soaked?" Asked Suit Guy. Harper screwed up her face.

"Uh...daft. Thick. Dumb. I mean, maybe he was just disoriented, but he weren't the same. Like he had something else on his mind all the damn time." Suit Guy nodded.

"So not, unhinged?"

"Nah…" Harper started to say, before trailing off. "I mean…I don't think so. He was weird, not barmy."

"You think he could be in League with the Clairvoyant," Murder said. Suit Guy nodded and Harper looked between them.

"That's how he knew how to find me," she said. "But he took just as long as you guys. If not shorter; he sent a bloody letter, and they take fucking ages to get where they going."

"That's what I can't figure out," Suit Guy said. "This Clairvoyant isn't way into the future like he should be. He's always just a couple steps in front."

"I really shoulda stuck to moving every month like I was gonna," Harper muttered, staring at Tenant's ID on the screen. His face, blown up that big, serious and unsmiling, gave her the creeps. He'd always used to give them hell for creeping around, being nosey. Harper missed him, missed her whole squadron, missed the banter and the teamwork, even the way he used to scream at them all when they'd fucked up. He'd been good to them. She didn't really want to believe he was working for a terrorist organisation. And all because she wanted to crack a safe and had driven him nuts.

"We should find him," called a familiar voice from behind Ward. Harper twisted to see Skye walking in, face and nose bruised, the ends of her hair a little scorched. Something like guilt twisted the buzzing a little. 

_Good,_ Harper thought savagely. _You should be guilty, you weird buzzing housemate. You almost killed her._

Ward yanked Harper back around and she pulled her wrists free from him with a glare. God, he was really pissing her off. She fantasised about punching him in the dick for a second before trying to focus.

"Then that's what we'll do," said Suit Guy. "May, reroute the plane. Then when we go, May, stay with Faul. Fitz and Ward, with me."

"No offense, but you might want a bit more firepower," Harper said lazily, glad she was no longer in the line of fire.

"We'll do just fine," Suit Guy said absently, turning off the screen. Murder- no, May -grabbed Harper's laptop and shut it, tucking it away in her bag. 

"I took you guys out in like half a second. Twice," Harper said, grinning at Ward. He stared back darkly. Suit Guy looked at her.

"You have superpowers. This is just an old guy who's not in the SAS anymore." Harper shrugged.

"Your funeral."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harper is a prick. Coulson, Ward and Fitz hunt down Tenant, but HQ are getting insistent, and it’s not a good time to have the Hub on their backs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, look at all this updating! I’m on fire! :)

Harper sat in a chair in the lab while Doctor Simmons stuck needles in her, Skye fiddled with a tablet and May sat to one side, eyeing them all coldly.

“Does Wonder Woman here ever speak?” Harper asked, studying May interestedly.

“When she wants to,” May said, tilting her head ever so slightly.

“Do you ever sit still?” Simmons asked good-naturedly, holding down Harper’s wrist as she tapped her foot on the rung of her chair.

“Nah. Hey, Skye, right?”

“Yes,” Skye said shortly. God, this was boring.

“You wagged it at school, huh?” Skye slowly raised her eyes from the tablet. Harper grinned at her.

“What?”

“What on earth would make you think that?” Simmons interjected defensively.

“What the hell does ‘wagged it’ mean?” Skye asked.

“Oh, come on,” Harper said, enjoying the cool rise she was getting out of Skye. “A hacker, who lived in a van? Who couldn’t even interrogate me properly, yet she’s part of S.H.I.E.L.D? You dropped outta school, right, then was handpicked from ‘the masses’-“ she gave sarcastic finger quotes with one hand- “to join Suit Guy’s team. It’s like a private security action movie!”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Skye snapped, and Harper’s grin widened.

“Forget it, babby. _You_ don’t even know anything about you.”

“Be quiet, Lewis,” May said suddenly, from her seat in the corner.

“It’s Faul,” Harper retorted. May ignored her.

“You’re in custody for destruction of property and identity fraud. Act like it.” Harper sighed.

“Well, you still love me, right Doc?” she teased, giving Simmons butterfly lashes. Simmons flushed awkwardly, and yanked the needles from Harper’s arm rather harder than necessary.

†††††††††††††††††††††

Tenant was a suspicious man. Before they’d even gotten past his front gate, Fitz had had to disable four different booby traps, and Ward was starting to wonder how this man got his mail. Coulson’s phone kept ringing, too, jumping Fitz out of concentration and making Ward edgy. After the third time of letting it trill itself out, Coulson finally relented and pressed answer, moving away to converse with whoever was so desperate to talk to him. Ward kept his hand inside his jacket, wrapped around his gun, as Fitz moved to test opening the gate for the first time.

“Yes, sir. I am aware. No, sir. Yes, we have leads. One lead, sir. No, sir. As you wish. Thank you.” Coulson ended the call and sighed, walking back over as Fitz successfully took an unharmed step onto the front garden path.

“Who was that?” Ward asked.

“Classified,” Coulson replied.

“What did they want?”

“To argue me into to working faster,” Coulson said. Ward shrugged. 

“Well, we could have got the girl to talk faster if Skye hadn’t wound her up-“

“Ward, I don’t want to do this right now,” Coulson replied wearily. “I get that you don’t want her in the field, okay? But in the end, it’s not your decision to make. It’s mine. Alright?” Ward paused.

“Yes, sir,” he conceded, and Coulson clapped him on the shoulder.

“That’s what I want to hear.” Ward rearranged his grip on his gun, and followed Coulson and Fitz up the garden path with a frown on his face.

Tenant didn't open the door on the first ring. Or the second. Or the third. Coulson resorted to slamming his fist against the cracked wood.

"This is S.H.I.E.L.D, Major Tenant. We would like to ask you a few questions. Can you open up, please?" He stepped back, a hand on his night-night gun, and Ward gave him an unimpressed look. Coulson shrugged. "Gave him his chance." He took a couple steps back, then twisted his hip, planted one foot, and threw his weight into a kick, right at the height of the lock. The door buckled. Coulson kicked again, and it flew inwards with a cloud of splinters and a resounding crash. "Honestly, I just kinda wanted to do that," Coulson said with a grin. Ward raised his eyebrows, stepped in front of Fitz, and raised his night-night gun as Coulson started to sweep the hall. It was dark. Ridiculously tidy. Unlived-in.

"We've got the wrong place," Fitz said, slowly rotating with his tablet in his hand. "No heat signatures, not even residue." He looked at Ward, who turned to Coulson.

"Faul gave us the wrong information," he ground out.

"With all that trapping?" Coulson replied. "He lived here, he's just not here now."

"She said she kept tabs on him."

"Up until the last few months."

"Sir," Fitz warned, and Coulson moved over to look at the tablet. Heat signatures. Theirs, and then one more, a ball of heat right above their heads. Ward looked up. Coulson looked up. Fitz looked up. A creak of a floorboard. The ceiling opened above them, and two dirty creatures dropped to the floor, thin, snarling, slavering, Fitz squealed, Coulson drew his night-night gun and opened fire. Mad dogs. _Come on_ , Ward thought. _Really_? 

He slammed a shoulder into Fitz, knocking him to the side as one of the dogs leapt, and it got a night-night bullet right in its foaming jaw. It snapped and leapt again, utterly unfazed, and Ward flicked on the safety and slammed the butt of the gun across the dog's head. It dropped, scrabbled long claws against the hardwood, and went for Fitz again, and Ward dropped the gun and dived for it, latching onto its neck and rolling with it, arms wrapped around its throat, head turned back from its snapping jaws. Ward's skull slammed into the floor and he blinked away bursts of light that flashes behind his eyes. The dog was frighteningly thin, and squirmed like a fish, but he held on, the two of them thrashing around on the floor until the dog's movements grew stiffer, slower, and stopped altogether. Ward lay there, head spinning, clutching the dog.

Someone's phone was ringing. Fitz was cowered in the corner, trembling. BOOP.

"Agent Coulson," Coulson answered, wearily. Ward looked up. There was a knife in the second dog's neck, and it was bleeding out at Coulson's feet, that insane gleam fading from its eye. Coulson watched it, warily. Mouth turned down at the edges. "Yes, sir. I understand. Just been attacked by mad dogs, sir. Mad dogs, sir. No, sir. Although I would appreciate a pay rise for the trouble of fending off mad dogs, sir. Yes sir. Understood." He ended the call, placed his hands on his knees, and blew out a long breath. "New experience, I guess."

"Why is the Hub on our backs?" Fitz asked, shakily getting to his feet.

"I didn't say it was the Hub," Coulson replied evasively. Ward raised an eyebrow, and he conceded. "They're worried. They think Faul is a volatile terrorist."

"And you think she isn't?" Ward retorted.

"We're not having this argument, Agent Ward," Coulson warned him. "Not when I've just been attacked by a mad dog. Tenant's gone. We have to assume he knew we were coming. That means Centipede knows we have Faul, which means they're coming after us to get her. She's what they wanted, after all."

"The Bus is in danger?" Fitz said, his voice squealing slightly.

"They have May, they'll be fine," Ward said. "And Faul," he added reluctantly.

"All the same," Coulson said, "we need to regroup. We need more information. If we can track down Tenant, we can track down Centipede. Maybe we can take it all down today."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okoye shout-out because she is Queen and I love her
> 
> Feedback? Comments? Thanks, lovely people :)
> 
> P.S. don't spoil aos s7 for me I have it recorded and I'm going to watch the last few episodes v soon!! Pls :(


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We back, friends. No one even wants this story but I'm past halfway so I'm sticking with it.

Everything was silent at the Bus when they arrived. The ramp was still down, and the sun was still shining, but even so, Fitz hurried to a jog, worry eating away at his chest. 

"Simmons?" he called, as soon as he'd set foot on the ramp. "Simmons?" A brief silence, and then Simmons's head swung down from above the stairs with a relieved smile, and his heart rested a little. "Hi. Are you okay?" She thumped down the stairs and flung her arms around him.

"Oh, goodness, yes! Mad dogs, honestly. Can these field missions get any worse?" She brushed him down absent-mindedly, yammering away like a nervous monkey.

"Simmons, I'm fine, stop clucking," he replied, hiding back a smile and patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. She tucked her hair behind her ear. He hoisted up his bag. Then Ward brushed past them with a harsh, "Assemble on deck in five minutes," and the atmosphere was gone.

†††††††††††††††††††††

"Mad dogs?" Faul snorted. "I told you so. Tenant was threaders all the time in training. He's probably full-blown psychopath by now."

"Not important," Coulson replied. "What is important is that they know we're after them and they know exactly what you know. Any chance your computer could he bugged?" Faul's face creased in a frown.

"I don't think so," she replied slowly. Skye tapped her fingers impatiently. "I mean, remotely? Maybe, but..." 

"Can I take a look at it?" Skye asked, before she could stop herself. Everyone looked at her. Then everyone looked at Faul. And she shrugged.

"Be my guest."

"Password?"

"Lowercase k, nine three dash eight, forward slash, h, s, capital e, asterisk and an underscore." Skye typed it out dutifully and set to work.

Meanwhile, Simmons and Fitz were discussing the pros and cons of mad dogs as bodyguards, which was, to say the least, kind of distracting.

"No bugs, no viruses, but you do have an e-mail," Skye announced after a while, and Fail frowned.

"What's it say?"

"Uh, it's from...flower@mail.com. It says... _Dear Miss Lewis, we have a proposition. In exchange for you and your talents at 3 o'clock today , we will take the decision NOT to bomb your captors and their plane to pieces in the field in Pennsylvania state that you are currently residing in. Sincerely, Raina._ "

The room went very quiet.

†††††††††††††††††††††

"I have to go," Harper said, raising her voice to be heard. Ward and Skye were arguing, Coulson and May were conversing quietly, and the two doctors were grumpily observing it all.

"You're not going," Coulson replied, without even glancing at her.

"I'd rather not get all 'a youse killed, thanks. Probably go to the choky, then spend the rest a me life 'round the back o'Rackhams." No one was listening, and she rolled her eyes. "Well, this ay gonna feed the babbie, is it?" The buzzing beneath her skin seemed to raise its voice in agreement, and she looked around at all of them. She had to get their attention _somehow_. The buzzing. Well, that's an idea. 

Harper raised her hand, listening to its excited little voice. Her fingertips began to glow. Then the creases of her skin, the cracks in her palm. Then _bang_! A curve of yellow light shot from her hand, and dissipated into the air like tiny fireflies. Once again, the room went very quiet. Once again, they all stared.

"I'm going," she said, and no one argued this time.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the Bridge episode in Season 1

"We've done this before," Skye said quietly, comfortingly.

"Yeah, and you got a guy killed," Harper replied. "Ward told me." Skye sighed.

"It'll be fine."

"I know," Harper said. They couldn't hurt her. If they did, she'd just blow them all to bits. Theoretically, at least. The buzzing hadn't really worked in her favour so far.

Brooklyn bridge was long. She could see them on the other side, a small group of people. One smaller and daintier than the rest. The water roiled beneath the bridge.

"Are we ready?" Coulson asked. Skye had managed to wrangle her way into being the one to walk Harper to the middle of the bridge, amidst vehement denials from Ward. Distantly, Harper was happy it wasn't Murder May or Ward taking her to her death. "Now, don't worry about anything. We've come prepared this time."

"As opposed to last time?" Harper replied, trying not to sound hysterical. Ward rolled his eyes.

"Ward, get to position," Coulson said, ignoring her. "May, do you copy?" May must have said something over the comms, because Coulson nodded, then turned to Harper and Skye. "Alright. Get walking."

It was torturous. Harper never thought she'd be willingly walking towards certain doom. This was a stupid ploy. If it was her planning, she would at least have given herself a gun.

The dainty one on the other side was also walking, accompanied by two very large people.

"That's Raina," Skye said, teeth gritted. Harper squinted. Curly hair. Flowery dress.

"Doesn't look like a psychopath," she observed.

"Don't judge a book by its cover," Skye replied.

They drew closer. For some reason, the buzzing was picking up a little. Harper wanted to tell it to stuff it, but that would have been very strange. Maybe it was just nervous, like her.

There was a news helicopter circling the bridge. Harper could see why: someone had crashed their car into the railing, and it was smoking and fiery.

"Copy," Skye said, pressing in her comms. "Okay, I stop here. You go on."

"What?" Harper said distractedly. The buzzing was too loud now. Like her skin was vibrating. Like her brain was hopping around in her skull.

"Go on," Skye said, giving her a little push. "Keep walking. I'm right here." The news helicopter was still circling. Getting kind of close. _Bzzzz_. Harper looked up. The woman and her bodyguards were getting very close. Harper stopped walking. She turned around. She ran, just as a hail of bullets slammed into the bridge at Skye's heels, and then Harper tackled her round the waist and they both went down onto the concrete.

_RATATATA_

The gunfire deafened the buzzing out, and if Harper had her eyes open, she would have been able to see that she was glowing. She didn't have her eyes open. She was crouched over Skye, swaying from side to side, and there was blood. Blood on the ground, on her shoes, dripping onto Skye's clothes. 

The gunfire paused for a second, and Harper collapsed. The woman's body guards were getting closer now, they were running. Skye shifted under her and Harper managed a few words through the glare of pain in her side.

"Water. Into...the water." There was a haze of vision that informed her that Skye was battering a hole in the side of the bridge. An arm around the waist, and then Skye hauled her over the side and they dropped through the air and the water rushed at them.


End file.
